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My pet theory is that music is so universal because it hijacks two systems in the human brain that are necessary for survival. First, humans are a social speci
by hesk 7y ago
My pet theory is that music is so universal because it hijacks two systems in the human brain that are necessary for survival.
First, humans are a social species and use language to communicate. Babies learn language by observing and emulating their parents. So it makes sense that humans evolved a rewards pathway that makes it pleasurable to listen to sounds.
Second, the brain is basically a pattern matching and prediction machine. Music is full of patterns, e.g., rhythm and harmonics.
That's why music is so popular -- because it allows the brain to do something which it is very good at and which it also finds pleasurable.
- pygy_ 7y agoMy pet theory (which complements yours) is that it was, before the invention of writing, part of the mnemonic techniques used to perpetuate vital information. Other worthy mentions are story-telling/acting, poetry (rhyme and meter) and painting. Being innately predisposed to like these disciplines makes one more likely to practice them, become good at them, and help propagate useful info undamaged, thus rising the group's survival abilities. They were vital for so long (compared to the few millennia since we invented writing) that we still have the taste baked in, even though writing, then the press then computers and photographs took over those roles. Rhymes and meter are the CRC32 check of prehistory.
- jvanderbot 7y agoI was hoping to add an original thought to this thread, but you nailed 80% of my point. The remaining 20% is that music allows "chunking"[1] complex knowledge into a single song that's easy to remember. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)
- nitwit005 7y agoI wouldn't assume it's a positive trait. People take pleasure out of things like optical illusions, which are arguably defects in human vision. There is a 3-5% rate of people who don't enjoy music, and it at least doesn't obviously handicap them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_anhedonia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_anhedonia
- andykx 7y agoAre people really pleasured by optical illusions, or are they interested by them? I think that most people understand that their brains are struggling to comprehend them, and that is why they are interesting. Regardless, I don't think there's much evidence (if any) for the idea that the enjoyment of music is the result of a defect in our auditory system.
- nitwit005 7y agoPeople certainly enjoy magic eye books and the like. Defect would imply it's a negative trait. A lot of mental quirks are probably just irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view.
- Digit-Al 7y agoI would argue that magic eye books and optical illusions are different things. An optical illusion exploits our brains "shortcut" mechanisms, which could be considered taking advantage of a weakness, whilst a magic eye utilises our pattern matching ability, which could be considered as bolstering a strength. Not sure I've explained myself as well as I could, but hopefully I have.
- nitwit005 7y agoEvery optical illusion is some good aspect of vision failing in a limited case. Evolution is presumably selecting for the good aspect, and not the occasional hallucination it produces.
- pygy_ 7y agoIt doesn't handicap them today. I think it would have handicapped them 4000 years ago. There is actual evidence for my theory BTW. Aboriginal folks in Australia had a tradition of using songs to describe itineraries. Antique poetry and the bits of oral traditions that survived until today were using heavily structured verses (like the dactylic hexameter). A notable exception is the old testament, whose first parts were transmitted orally before being written down, and which is structured in verses of unknown structure (or unstructured, except for the psalms). Modern poetry has gradually lost that strong structure. The prevalence of musical anhedonia and amusia may very well have risen in recent times as a result of the loss of utility of music. ———— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia
- naniwaduni 7y agorhymes are very not universal
- pygy_ 7y agoTIL. Verse structure appears to have been widespread though.
- j7ake 7y agoEven after the invention of writing, music and art is still a vital medium through which to perpetuate vital information. Not all ideas can be distilled easily into words.
- pygy_ 7y agoPerpetuating it is not vital anymore. The civilization could most likely survive the abrupt loss of every piece of music poetry and painting ever created up to this point.
- munificent 7y agoI like this theory. Music as a superstimulus[0] for speech. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus
- dr_dshiv 7y agoMy pet theory is that a musical capacity provides a pleasure/reward for the imitation of intentional motor activity. I believe this enjoyment of rhythmic entrainment predated language by roughly a million years and launched cultural transmission of skill knowledge in prehumans. Humans are (largely) the only animals with cultural transmission of skills. Making stone tools or cutting trees or scraping hides or making fire would have involved much rhythmic motor activity.
- Agebor 7y agoIndeed. This view is also compatible with the emerging Bayesian Brain theory